I am told that Firefox is already open and I should turn it off before continuing to update.

When I open Firefox, I am prompted to update and I say yes. Then it starts to install the update, but a window comes up and tells me that Firefox is already open, when it is not. This also happens when it restarts when I have installed an add-on.

Do a clean reinstall and download a fresh Firefox copy from http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/all.html and save the file to the desktop.
Uninstall your current Firefox version and remove the Firefox program folder before installing that copy of the Firefox installer. 
Don't remove personal data when uninstalling.
It is important to delete the Firefox program folder to remove all the files and make sure that there are no problems with files that were leftover after uninstalling.
You can skip the step to create a new profile, that is not necessary for this issue.
See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Standard_diagnostic_-_Firefox#Clean_reinstall

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I am getting complaints from links that Firefox is already running and needs to be closed when it is not visibly running. But, I do find it as a process that IS running. What gives?

I click on a link in an E-mail. It complains that Firefox is already running and I must close it. Firefox is NOT visibly running. I check via Task Manager to verify. I find Firefox is running as a process. I kill the process and then can proceed. I did use Firefox earlier and closed it.

Make sure that you do not start Firefox with the -no-remote switch or have set the environment variable MOZ_NO_REMOTE=1 (Control Panel > System > Advanced > Environment variables).
If you need to have more than one profile open at the same time then start subsequent instances with the -no-remote command line switch. 
You can send links from other programs to a Firefox instance that is started with -no-remote, you need to drag links in a Firefox window in such cases.
See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Opening_a_new_instance_of_Firefox_with_another_profile

Need to install for but mac says that firefox is already installed and I cannot find it.

I am trying to install TOR (had many moons ago and thought I closed it). It says that firefox is already running and I can't open it twice. Possibly I have firefox and possibly I don't. I cannot find it anywhere, nothing to drag to the trash. I want to reinstall it after, but I can't find it anywhere in my computer. I just get the warning when I try to install TOR.

Hello  ,
Certain Firefox problems can be solved by performing a ''Clean reinstall''. This means you remove Firefox program files and then reinstall Firefox. Please follow these steps:
'''Note:''' You might want to print these steps or view them in another browser.
#Download the latest Desktop version of Firefox from http://www.mozilla.org and save the setup file to your computer.
#After the download finishes, close all Firefox windows (click Exit from the Firefox or File menu).
#Delete the Firefox installation folder, which is located in one of these locations, by default:
#*'''Windows:'''
#**C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox
#**C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox
#*'''Mac:''' Delete Firefox from the Applications folder.
#*'''Linux:''' If you installed Firefox with the distro-based package manager, you should use the same way to uninstall it - see [[Installing Firefox on Linux]]. If you downloaded and installed the binary package from the [http://www.mozilla.org/firefox#desktop Firefox download page], simply remove the folder ''firefox'' in your home directory.
#Now, go ahead and reinstall Firefox:
##Double-click the downloaded installation file and go through the steps of the installation wizard.
##Once the wizard is finished, choose to directly open Firefox after clicking the Finish button.
More information about reinstalling Firefox can be found [[Troubleshoot and diagnose Firefox problems#w_5-reinstall-firefox|here]].
WARNING:Do not use a third party uninstaller as part of this process. Doing so could permanently delete your [[Profiles|Firefox profile]] data, including but not limited to, extensions, cache, cookies, bookmarks, personal settings and saved passwords. These cannot be easily recovered unless they have been backed up to an external device! See [[Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles]]. 
Please report back to say if this helped you!
Thank you.

When I try to start Firefox, I get a message saying that Firefox is already running and cannot be re-started, so close down and reboot.

Following an upgrade of my OS from XP to Vista, I tried to point the new installation at my old profile. Now when I try to start FF, I get a message saying that it is already running and I should reboot to clear the problem. I've done that but the problem remains. I have uninstalled firefox and reinstalled v4 beta. The problem remains. Any ideas?

OK, I had moved the profile file inside the profile folder which was created when I installed FF, to the main FF folder. I then took the equivalent file which existed under XP before my upgrade to vista, and moved it into the new Profile folder. That's when I hit the problem described in the initial question.
So, what I did following Tony's response was to move the bookmarks password and cookies files into the profile created on the install. I then moved that file into the profile folder and moved the one I'd saved from XP, out to the main FF folder.
Started FF and voila! All working fine. Thanks for your help.

When I try to download and open Firefox with OS 10.6.3 I get an error message saying "A copy of Firefox is already open" -- and it's not.

I have a new MacBook Pro running OS 10.6.3. Every time I download Firefox and try to open it, I get an error message saying, "A copy of Firefox is already open." And it's not.
== This happened ==
Just once or twice
== I bought my new computer. ==
== User Agent ==
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_6_3; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.22.7 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Safari/531.22.7

Bonjour,
Je ne peux pas ouvrir Firefox. Voici le message que je reçois : " Firefox est déjà en cours d'exécution mais ne répond pas. Pour ouvrir une nouvelle fenêtre, vous devez d'abord arrêter le processus Firefox existant ou redémarrer votre système." Je ne vois pas de processus existant.
Si je me sers de copie de documents PDF et qu'il y a des liens dans le document, les liens ne fonctionnent pas.
Armande

Firefox will not open or stay open especially when I'm first getting on it for the day. It will sometimes say that firefox is already running and that I have to close it which I don't understand.

Right now I'm staying connected but when I tried it at 2:00 Firefox would not stay connected. It would keep saying not responding. Also sometimes if I would go to fast it would just jam up. I could be connected and then go to my email and it would say lost connection. It just kept changing as though I was getting more that one connection. Hopefully you can help me.

Basically it means firefox didnt Shut down properly and if you close firefox and you try to open it again and you get the message firefox is already running then in windows right click on the taskbar and press on task manager and then once task manager is open press on processes and look for firefox.exe and then where it says End process click that and it will close firefox properly ok and then you can open firefox up again properly ok and for mac its a differnat way ok

Frequently, when waking the computer up from Standby and opening a new browsing session, I get a message that Firefox is already running and needs to be closed, even though it was closed during the previous session. I use Task Manager to close it.

Internet connection is AT&T highspeed DSL via Westell modem. Antivirus is AVG 2011. OS is XP Home SP2, circa 2002.

* [[Firefox is already running but is not responding]]
-> Profile in use
* http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_in_use
Check and tell if its working.

After I close Firefox 4.0 and try to open it later, it says that another instance of firefox is already open and won't let me open firefox. I have to restart computer..

After it closes I work on another program, etc. When I try to go online again firefox says it's still open even though I can see nothing. Going to Task Manager doesn't show anything open.
I'm running Windows 7 64-bit.

https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Firefox%20hangs See '''hang-at-exit'''

When I close Firefox, it closes on my desktop, but when I try to open it again, it appears to think that it is already open and will not open--even in safe mode.

The only way I seem to be able to reopen Firefox is to reboot the computer, which, needless to say, is not a very helpful choice. Is this a common problem? I am running Windows 7.

See "Hang at exit":
* http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_hangs
* [[Firefox hangs]]

Firefox was not running smoothly, so I unistalled it and any every folder that had anything to do with Firefox or Mozilla, then reinstalled the newest version and now it says that it cannot open because "a copy of firefox is already open." What now?

I am running Mac OSX 10.5 and have never had issues with firefox. Then I noticed it starting to run much slower and having issues freezing, yet if I used safari there were no problems. I decided to uninstall firefox and all of the folders that go along with it to get a clean restart with a new download. Everything seemed to download fine, but when I attempt to open firefox it just opens a warning that says "a copy of firefox is already open" and my only option is to close the program. Yes, I have quit ALL applications and even restarted the computer to make sure nothing is running first.
This may be completely unrelated, but another issue nonetheless, shortly before I started having issues with firefox, it no longer would go to the hotmail login page to check my email. I didn't change any settings, but it would not load that webpage even though every other page works fine. I know it is not a problem with the hotmail site because every other computer in my home will go to the site and login, plus I can get into my email by going to MSN and logging in from there.

Make sure that you haven't left a profiles.ini file.
* http://kb.mozillazine.org/profiles.ini_file
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox

Firefox will not open and states that its already running. But is not?

After several opening and closing of Firefox several time it will not open when I click on the desk top icon. A screen will come up that Firefox is already running and that I will have to close it before I can start Firefox. To correct this I have to restart the computer. It will then work ok for a few time but will then not start again.

See "Hang at exit":
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_hangs
See "Firefox hangs when you quit it":
*https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Firefox+hangs

FireFox doesn't fully close so whenever I reopen it refuses to open secure sites I had up when I closed it; it keeps thinking that the tab is already open and wont open another one. How do you fix this?

Whenever I close Firefox and then reopen it later on it opens the last webpage I had open before closing the browser instead of my homepage. It seems that exiting Firefox doesn't fully shut it down and just puts it into hibernation mode. This has become a problem because when I have a secure webpage open when I close the web browser, without logging out of the page, and then try to go to that page again it thinks that it's already open and wont open another page for me. This means that I can't even navigate to the page to log out. I think it might be just a setting with Firefox 4 but not sure which one, any suggestions?

For possible causes and solutions see [[Firefox is already running but is not responding]].

I can no longer open firefox. I get a message that it is already open but when I try to force quit the app it is not there.

I am running IMacs with an OS10.6x operating system. This problem has occurred on several of my machines now. I can still open firefox from alternate profiles on the same machine, but the student profile will give me the message that it is already open and can only have one instance running at a time.

Make sure that the profile that Firefox wants to use and that is specified in profiles.ini still exists. If that profile isn't found then you get that same error message.
See:
* http://kb.mozillazine.org/Recovering_a_missing_profile
* http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_in_use

I am using server and client systems when i am trying to open the browser in two or more machines it says that firefox is already running, i want to open the browser in all machines simeltaniously

I am using server and clients machines in my office, here i want to open browsers in all systems simultaneously but i am unable open the browser, when i am trying to open the browser in the second machine it says that firefox is already open... pls. solve this problem
Thank you

You can't open one Profile more than once. You need a separate Profile for each browser on each PC that you open.
https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Profiles

When I close out and try to come back on I am told that Firefox is still running, close it out. How can I close it out again...

When I am on the computer, and close out, sometimes I need to get back on. When I try to do so, I am told that Firefox is already running, close it out or restart. This is not right, and it should not be. Why can't I get back on line?

Sounds like it is hanging when you exit and later try to restart Firefox. Generally, the cause is an Extension or a Plugin.
* How to stop the running Firefox process
** In Task Manager, does firefox.exe show in the '''Processes''' tab?
** See: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Kill_application
* What may cause Firefox to hang at exit
** http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Firefox+hangs
** http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_hangs
** https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Firefox+is+already+running+but+is+not+responding
* You may need to try Firefox Safe Mode
** You may need to use '''Safe Mode''' to locate the problem: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Safe_Mode
**Firefox Safe Mode is a diagnostic mode that disables Extensions and some other features of Firefox. If you are using a theme, switch to the DEFAULT theme: Tools > Add-ons > Themes '''before''' starting Safe Mode. When entering Safe Mode, do not check any items on the entry window, just click "Continue in Safe Mode". Test to see if the problem you are experiencing is corrected.
** If the problem does not occur in Safe-mode then disable all of your Extensions and Plug-ins and then try to find which is causing it by enabling '''one at a time''' until the problem reappears. '''You MUST close and restart Firefox after EACH change''' via File > Restart Firefox (on Mac: Firefox > Quit). You can use "Disable all add-ons" on the Safe mode start window.
** See the following for more information
*** http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Troubleshooting+extensions+and+themes
*** http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Troubleshooting+plugins
*** http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Basic+Troubleshooting
'''Other issues needing your attention'''
The information submitted with your question indicates that you have out of date plugins with known security and stability issues that should be updated. To see the plugins submitted with your question, click "More system details..." to the right of your original question post. You can also see your plugins from the Firefox menu, Tools > Add-ons > Plugins.
*Adobe Shockwave for Director Netscape plug-in, version 11.5.9.615
**'''''Security update 11.5.9.620 released 2011-02-08'''''
*Adobe PDF Plug-In For Firefox and Netscape "9.4.1"
**Update to version 9.4.2 (released 2011-02-08) or Reader X (version 10)
**Reader X (version 10)
***New Adobe Reader X (version 10) with Protected Mode was released 2010-11-19
***See: http://www.securityweek.com/adobe-releases-acrobat-reader-x-protected-mode
*Next Generation Java Plug-in 1.6.0_18 for Mozilla browsers
**6 updates behind
**'''Security update 1.6.0_24 released 2011-02-10'''''
#'''Check your plugin versions''': http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/plugincheck/
#*'''Note: plugin check page does not have information on all plugin versions'''
#'''Update Shockwave for Director'''
#*NOTE: this is not the same as Shockwave Flash; this installs the Shockwave Player.
#*Use Firefox to download and SAVE the installer to your hard drive from the link in the article below (Desktop is a good place so you can find it).
#*When the download is complete, exit Firefox (File > Exit)
#*locate and double-click in the installer you just downloaded, let the install complete.
#*Restart Firefox and check your plugins again.
#*'''Download link and more information''': http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Using+the+Shockwave+plugin+with+Firefox
#'''Update Adobe Reader (PDF plugin):'''
#*From within your existing Adobe Reader ('''if you have it already installed'''):
#**Open the Adobe Reader program from your Programs list
#**Click Help > Check for Updates
#**Follow the prompts for updating
#**If this method works for you, skip the "Download complete installer" section below and proceed to "After the installation" below
#*Download complete installer ('''if you do NOT have Adobe Reader installed'''):
#**Use the links below to avoid getting the troublesome "getplus" Adobe Download Manager and other "extras" you may not want
#**Use Firefox to download and SAVE the installer to your hard drive from the appropriate link below
#**Click "Save to File"; save to your Desktop (so you can find it)
#**After download completes, close Firefox
#**Click the installer you just downloaded and allow the install to continue
#***Note: Vista and Win7 users may need to right-click the installer and choose "Run as Administrator"
#**'''Download link''': ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/
#***Choose your OS
#***Choose the latest #.x version (example 9.x, for version 9)
#***Choose the highest number version listed
#****NOTE: 10.x is the new Adobe Reader X (Windows and Mac only as of this posting)
#***Choose your language
#***Download the file, SAVE it to your hard drive, when complete, close Firefox, click on the installer you just downloaded and let it install.
#***Windows: choose the .exe file; Mac: choose the .dmg file
#*Using either of the links below will force you to install the "getPlus" Adobe Download Manager. Also be sure to uncheck the McAfee Scanner if you do not want the link forcibly installed on your desktop
#**''Also see Download link''': http://get.adobe.com/reader/otherversions/
#**Also see: https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Using+the+Adobe+Reader+plugin+with+Firefox (do not use the link on this page for downloading; you may get the troublesome "getplus" Adobe Download Manager (Adobe DLM) and other "extras")
#*After the installation, start Firefox and check your version again.
#'''Update the [[Java]] plugin''' to the latest version.
#*Download site: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html (Java Platform: Download JRE)
#*Also see "Manual Update" in this article to update from the Java Control Panel in Windows Control Panel: http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Using+the+Java+plugin+with+Firefox#Updates
#* Removing old versions (if needed): http://www.java.com/en/download/faq/remove_olderversions.xml
#* Remove multiple Java Console extensions (if needed): http://kb.mozillazine.org
#*Java Test: http://www.java.com/en/download/help/testvm.xml

I am told that Firefox is already open and I should turn it off before continuing to update.

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